Our thoughts are in Missouri...

As many of you know, I am from Joplin, MO and my family has been affected by the deadly, devastating tornado yesterday.  Thank goodness all family members are accounted for and safe, but several homes including my brothers and grand parents were very heavily damaged or destroyed.  For those of you who know TJ, his home was heavily damaged.

Here is a photo of what remains of my grand parents home on the eastern side of Joplin.

Photo from April

Here is a photo of the devastation of the high school where I attended for 1 year before moving to Neosho.

Photo from April

I don't have any photos of my brothers home, but they were 1/2 block away from the areas that are completely gone.  He is almost directly east of the hospital below.  Here is a photo of the hospital that was one of the first areas hit as the tornado cut a path from the western side of town to the eastern side of town right through the central heart of town (over a mile wide).  This is one of two hospitals in town (the other hospital is less than a mile from this one).

Photo from Denver Post - Notice NO windows in the hospital - Reports are that only 6 people perished in the hospital.

Warm & Sunny Houston?????

Sorry its been so long since I've updated the blog, but with the holidays and all, its been a little nuts.

We enjoyed several weeks in Missouri with Angela's family for the Christmas and New Years holidays.  It was great to watch the little ones open their presents and be excited for Santa!!!

Here, Laura, Katelyn & I marvel that the Gingerbread House is still standing.

Yep...  I'd say she was very excited over Christmas!!!  She woke us up in the trailer bright & early Christmas morning.

Crazy for "Pun Bob" - That is Sponge Bob for those of you who don't speak toddler.

 More Christmas photos available here.

We have been in Houston for a little over a week now and enjoyed a couple of nice weather days before making a freezing trip to Chicago to visit the Museum of Science & Industry.  It was a great trip and the U-505 submarine was amazing.  I don't have any good pictures of it yet, but will post when I have one.  Click on the highlighted links for more information.

We will be in Houston until next Wednesday and then will head to South Padre Island again for several months.  We are ready for the warm weather as its been quite chilly here in Houston with lows in the 30's and highs only in the 40's & 50's.

March 2010 Scrapbook Pages

Just a couple more scrapbook layouts ready...  These pages are from March of this year when we first became "full timers" and started our latest adventure in the RV.

Mar 21, 2010 - Road Trip- Journaling: I70 on the Kansas border.  We left Colorado to start our RV adventure.

Mar 22, 2010 - Cherished Family Times- Journaling: We celebrated Easter early so Katelyn & Emma got to show off their dresses.  Emma's eyes constantly followed Katelyn around.  What adorable cousins!  Our first stop on the trip was to visit with my family in MO.  We stayed in the RV at Laura & Eric's house and enjoyed the time spent with everyone.  What cuties!  780 miles travel.  March 22 to 29, 2010

Mar 22, 2010 - These are the Moments- Journaling: N/A

Mar 22, 2010 - Easter- Journaling: N/A

Mar 29, 2010 - Bluebird Patrol- Journaling: Our next stop was Houston to see Ted & Annie.  We enjoyed the tour of the bluebird houses at the golf course, although Ted does look like a thief here.

Close up of page 1 of double page

Close up of page 2 of double page

Close up of page 1 of double page

Close up of page 2 of double page

For full credits of pages, please click here for the tags showing products and techniques used.

Horses...

I just had to share this adorable picture of Laura & Eric's horses that Matt took while we were back visiting them.

Here is a link to the entire album....

TJ & Jamie's wedding layouts

Just wanted to share a couple more pages that I managed to finish (Yeah, I'm in April of 2006 - See, I'm really not that far behind!!!)

These are some photos that we snapped during TJ & Jamie's wedding. While I had done a 20 page digital book for them as a present, I had never really done any of the pictures for myself, so here they are. Of course, these are all paper and are based on sketches by pagemaps.com.

New Photo Site... Picasa

I've started changing our online photo gallery from Kodak to Picasa to allow everyone to download photos and save them to your own computer. I've just started the migration so please be patient as I get everything moved over.

As I promised, here are a couple of my favorites from the zoo....

Wow... Two days in a row...

Kodak Gallery for all Missouri Pictures

I finished getting all my pictures uploaded but I still need to put Matt's out on Kodak. Here are a couple more that are just adorable!!!

Its tough being me....

And Uncle Matt riding...

Uncle Matt & Katelyn reading

Tomorrow, I'll post pictures from the zoo!!

Missouri Pictures!!!

Sorry, I'm about a day behind (actually more than that, but who is counting!!).

I've had a bit of catching up to do after being gone for almost a week. Last night, I was able to make some previews of Cheryl Embry's new kit, Princess Diva and then of course, I had to use the kit to show off a new photo of Katelyn. The template that I utilized was the May template by Di Hickman.




Here are a couple more great photos from last week's trip (I'll post them all out to the Kodak site soon).

Katelyn with her new pillow that Mommy got her:







Unwrapping Auntie "G" & Uncle Matt's bribe (opps I mean gift)...


Helping Uncle Matt unwrap his Christmas present!


Uncle Matt and Katelyn playing.


Lots of hugs for Uncle Matt!


Kisses for Auntie G


Mommy, Katelyn & Uncle Matt playing



More pics to come later.....